Scotland’s Team Carson will contest the bronze medal match at the World Junior Championship for the second time in three years after suffering a narrow 7-6 defeat in the semi-final to defending champions Norway.
Orrin and Logan Carson, Archie Hyslop and Charlie Gibb had swept Lukas Hostmaelingen’s men aside, beating them 8-1 in the round-robin qualifying competition earlier in the week, but they were fully anticipating a much closer fought encounter in the semi-final in Cortina and so it proved.
Starting without the hammer and last stone advantage after finishing in third spot in those round-robin standings, to Norway’s second, they made a fine start, forcing the Norwegian skip into the error that let the Scots steal a 1-0 lead.
Twos were then exchanged at the next two ends and Scotland looked as if they might have manufactured another steal at the fourth end, until Hostmaelingen produced a perfectly weighted takeout through the narrowest of ports to score at the fourth. 
Forcing Norway to just one was still a good outcome for Carson’s men, but they were then forced back at the next, leaving them just 4-3 in front and Norway seized the upper hand after the midway break, scoring two at the sixth then stealing at the seventh to move 6-4 in front.
After they once again forced Scotland to take just one at the next, Hostmaelingen missed out on a chance to put his team in complete control when his relatively straightforward draw for a two at the ninth end ran too far.
However, the Scots were unable to take advantage, scoring just one at the final end.
“Obviously we’re really disappointed with how that finished up there,” said skip Orrin Carson.
“It was probably as good a first half as we’ve had all event and it was a really promising position to be in at half-time.
“We thought we were in control, but Lukas’s through the port tap in the fourth end probably changed the momentum of the game.
“The first half was excellent, but the second half was one of the worst we’ve played all week and in the play-offs you need to be on it for 10 or 11 ends and we just couldn’t do that today.
“The second half we just couldn’t keep that up and things started to unravel on the ice, but we know what we did wrong and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“We probably deserved to go to an extra end, but I don’t think we can have too many complaints.
“We weren’t good enough today and we’ll take lots of learnings from it and try to come back tomorrow and get the bronze medal.”
The 19-year-old showed his character as he took his full share of responsibility for the defeat.
“It was down to a couple of critical shots and we might be sitting here looking towards the gold medal match,” he said.
“I missed a couple of shots heavy and didn’t really give the sweepers a chance and we maybe missed a couple of things the wrong way.”
That maturity serves to stand his team in good stead as they prepare to try to repeat what they did two years ago when they got over the disappointment of an 8-1 defeat to the Chinese team that would go on to win gold and turned up the next day to beat Hostmaelingen’s Norway 11-4.
This time around it will be Korea they meet in the bronze medal match after they were beaten 9-2 by hosts Italy in the other semi-final and Carson knows they will have to perform at their best.
“We’ll look to come out flying in the morning and try to get a lead on Korea, but we know it won’t be easy,” said the Scotland skip.
“They took us to an extra end in the round-robin, so we’re expecting another 10 or 11 end game from them and we know we’ll have to be at it for that long as well and we’ll try to make sure we’re at it and come away with a medal.”
The final and bronze medal match will both be streamed live on The Curling Channel at 2pm (BST).
Watch streamed games on The Curling Channel
Schedule:
Sunday 13 April
Session 2
Scotland – USA 11-10
Session 3
Scotland – Korea 9-7(EE)
Monday 14 April
Session 4
Scotland – Norway 8-1
Tuesday 15 April
Session 6
Scotland – Denmark 8-7 (EE)
Wednesday 16 April
Session 7
Scotland – Italy 4-9
Thursday 17 April
Session 8
Scotland – Japan 9-4
Friday 18 April
Session 10
Scotland – Canada 7-9
Saturday 19 April
Session 11
Scotland-Switzerland 6-7
Session 12
Scotland – Germany 5-3
Sunday 20 April
Semi finals
Scotland – Norway 6-7
Italy – Korea 9-2
Monday 21 April
2pm (BST)
Gold medal match
Italy – Norway
Bronze medal match
Scotland - Korea
Team Scotland
Orrin Carson
Logan Carson
Archie Hyslop
Charlie Gibb
Jake MacDonald
Images @curlpicsphoto
